The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has ordered oil and gas firm MAGA Energy Ltd. to suspend its operations over unresolved environmental concerns and non-compliance issues, including unpaid taxes and orphan well cleanup fees.

The AER announced Thursday that it had issued the order a day earlier. The Calgary-based company has two weeks to shut in its wells and turn off equipment at its facilities, and to discontinue use of active, remaining pipelines, according to the order issued by the agency.

MAGA Energy currently holds 581 wells, 108 facilities and 801 pipeline segments, the AER said.

In a news release, the AER said it was taking action “to protect the public and environment.”

“Based on MAGA’s unpaid municipal taxes, AER and Orphan Well Association debt, and failure to meet its commitments, the director assessed that the licensee does not have the capacity to fulfil its regulatory and liability obligations,” the AER said.

The order includes a list of requirements that MAGA must address before it can resume operations. These include addressing remediation issues for multiple sites, resolving outstanding field inspections and spending the minimum, legally required amount of money for cleanup of inactive sites.

In a statement to CBC News on Friday, Sturgeon County said MAGA Energy owes an outstanding balance exceeding $356,000 in property taxes and penalties. The county warned that if the company dissolves, the chances of recovering those funds are uncertain.

“It is unacceptable for companies to walk away from their tax obligations,” the statement read, adding that municipalities need stronger enforcement tools to ensure property taxes are treated as a priority.

According to the statement, as of Dec. 31, 2025, oil and gas companies owed Sturgeon County more than $6.8 million in unpaid property taxes.

A post on Sturgeon County’s website from 2023 details how county officials said MAGA Energy owed more than $230,000 in tax arrears at that time, dating back to 2021.

In 2023, a ministerial order, signed by Alberta’s then-energy minister Peter Guthrie, was meant to prevent the AER from approving the transfer of any more wells or well licences to companies that had municipal tax arrears beyond a certain threshold. 

In September 2024, the AER approved the transfer of 170 wells, 30 facilities and 47 pipeline licences to MAGA Energy. 

Mark Dorin owns land in and around Edmonton with wells that were transferred to MAGA Energy over the past few years. He believes the regulator should be acting faster. 

“We’ve got this company that’s not paying their taxes, not paying landowners,” he told CBC News. “There’s no public benefit whatsoever for those operations.

“We’ve got our priorities backward.” 

MAGA Energy had not responded to CBC’s request for comment at the time of publication. 

Critic says better enforcement needed

In a statement to CBC News, Energy Minister Brian Jean’s office said the order to suspend MAGA Energy operations shows Alberta’s policies and regulations work.

“If companies do not meet environmental requirements or taxpayer responsibilities, they will be shut down,” the statement said. 

Janetta McKenzie, director of the oil and gas program at the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think-tank focused on clean energy, said the order “suggests that perhaps the regulator isn’t holding firm to their responsibilities in a timely manner.”

“Oil and gas firms are given quite a bit of leeway, and given quite a bit of ability to kind of navigate some of these rules,” she told CBC News. 

A report released last month found that about $250 million of unpaid taxes in Alberta over the years may not be able to be recovered from oil and gas companies.

The province charges oil and gas companies an orphan well levy to help fund the Orphan Well Association. The association works to reduce the risk of orphan wells and closes oil and gas sites that don’t have a financially viable owner. But a 2025 report warned the annual levy was too low. 

McKenzie said that needs to change.

“We see, particularly in the last few years, a lot of orphan wells entering the inventory, but the levy being charged to industries is only going up a little bit,” she said.

McKenzie said Albertans will ultimately bear the financial and environmental costs.

“If [the wells] haven’t been properly suspended, they could be leaking methane or other pollutants into the atmosphere or into water,” she said. “That could lead to health impacts for people or for livestock that are living in the area.”

Dorin, the Edmonton-area landowner, said he plans to apply to the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, under Section 36 of the province’s Surface Rights Act, to see if he can get some compensation from MAGA Energy. 

“That could take decades, and that bill’s getting rather large and it’s growing very quickly,” he said.